Posted on 06/02/2005 7:06:49 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
He said the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes. "However, they can also be utilized for prohibited purposes if in a good state of repair."
He said imagery analysts have identified 109 sites that have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, up from 90 reported in March.
The report also provided much more detail about the percentage of items no longer at the places where U.N. inspectors monitored them.
From the imagery analysis, Perricos said analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission which he heads have concluded that biological sites were less damaged than chemical and missile sites.
The commission, known as UNMOVIC, previously reported the discovery of some equipment and material from the sites in scrapyards in Jordan and the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
Perricos said analysts found, for example, that 53 of the 98 vessels that could be used for a wide range of chemical reactions had disappeared. "Due to its characteristics, this equipment can be used for the production of both commercial chemicals and chemical warfare agents," he said.
The report said 3,380 valves, 107 pumps, and more than 7.8 miles of pipes were known to have been located at the 39 chemical sites.
A third of the chemical items removed came from the Qaa Qaa industrial complex south of Baghdad which the report said "was among the sites possessing the highest number of dual-use production equipment," whose fate is now unknown." Significant quantities of missing material were also located at the Fallujah II and Fallujah III facilities north of the city, which was besieged last year.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991, those facilities played a major part in the production of precursors for Iraq's chemical warfare program.
The percentages of missing biological equipment from 12 sites were much smaller — no higher than 10 percent.
The report said 37 of 405 fermenters ranging in size from 2 gallons to 1,250 gallons had been removed. Those could be used to produce pharmaceuticals and vaccines as well as biological warfare agents such as anthrax.
The largest percentages of missing items were at the 58 missile facilities, which include some of the key production sites for both solid and liquid propellant missiles, the report said.
For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles — about 85 percent — had been removed, it said.
At the Kadhimiyah and Al Samoud factory sites in suburban Baghdad, where the report said airframes and engines for liquid propellant missiles were manufactured and final assembly was carried out, "all equipment and missile components have been removed."
UNMOVIC is the outgrowth of a U.N. inspections process created after the 1991 Gulf War in which invading Iraqi forces were ousted from Kuwait. Its staff are considered the only multinational weapons experts specifically trained in biological weapons and missile disarmament.
The report noted that the commissioners who advise UNMOVIC again raised questions about its future. Iraq has called for its Security Council mandate to be terminated because UNMOVIC is funded from past Iraqi oil sales and it wants to be treated like other countries, but the council has not taken up the issue.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said Thursday the commission's expertise "should not be lost for the international community."
You're using logic, common sense and knowledge here. Be very careful.
Well... with regard to some of the stuff that is no longer there, it is probably fair to say that we've had something to do with that as well.
Let's get us some of them long range missles to kill these school children helping the great satan.
Maybe all the weapons stuff went missing from UN monitored sites but I bet Scott Ritter knows where every little girl in his neighborhood lives.
Good post, right on the mark. Double standards all the way around for anyone anti-American.
Bullfeathers. They got bombed once, and ran for the tall grass.
It's the ESCAPE CLAUSE for any condemnation or action ever being taken against IRAQ or any other country that has produced WMD and vows the annihilation of Western Civilisation.
Further proof the UN is USELESS!!
Some improverished countries can't build telco infrastructures because the copper wire is always being stolen, both before and after it's laid.
In Iraq, one would think anthrax cauldrons and other junk present the same commercial appeal to scrap hustlers.
And yes, some of it probably disappeared with a great BOOM, courtesy of the U.S. military.
We are talking about, "The report said 3,380 valves, 107 pumps, and more than 7.8 miles of pipes were known to have been located at the 39 chemical sites."
-pumps, valves and pipe. Gimme a break.
bookmark
I still believe that much went to syria, the bekka and iran.
Oh yeah! Remember al-Qaa Qaa? That was the site that was supposedly looted of hundreds of tons of high explosive, according to jfkerry, just before the election. Turns out the un was monitoring it but couldn't tell us when they saw it last. More of the same I guess. Doesn't matter if you could mix those chemicals to produce a nerve weapon. As long as they were labelled as pesticide, then that's what they were.
What ..????
There isn't any WMD in Iraq .. that's what the media said ..?? and they had to be telling the truth didn't they ..??????
Damn good point.
I see what you are getting at. What I am leery about is that no where in this article does it say when the UN received the satellite images or from whom. Why haven’t the images been given to our military to examine. From what I see is that they had stuff that could produce WMD at the flip of a switch. They also had banned long-range missiles that they were not supposed to have. Why wasn’t this disclosed before? It sounds like someone is trying to set W up before Bolton gets in.
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